From reducing the channels of submitting government files to delegating financial powers to deputy secretaries and directors in ministries and adopting new technologies, ministries are taking a series of steps as part of an initiative to “increase efficiency in decision-making in the central secretariat”.
The steps taken by around 70 ministries and departments were collated in an impact analysis report on the initiative, for which the Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DARPG) was the nodal department. News18 has accessed the report.
The report stated that in many of these ministries, the channels of submission were reduced to four, three and two levels. Some of these ministries included railways, petroleum and natural gas, transport, external affairs, commerce, rural development and health.
Others such as the coal ministry took the initiative of delegating financial powers for miscellaneous and contingent expenditure to deputy secretary and directors in the ministry.
Similarly, the coal ministry also delegated powers to close vigilance cases for below board level CPSU officials to deputy secretary and directors. The ministry, as part of the initiative, had delegated group B appointments and its related matters to Joint Secretary level officers.
According to the impact analysis report, delayering by reducing the number of levels of officers and staff has been adopted by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas to ensure that no officer falling in a particular category will put up files to another officer in the same category so that they can all work in a horizontal organisational structure.
The report further stated that the review of channels of file submission led to an identification of significant surplus manpower. It said the comprehensive review of channels of submission in Department of Posts has resulted in a surplus of 50 undersecretaries who can be redeployed to other ministries. It has also resulted revised financial delegation.
The Ministry of Mines had adopted new digital platforms – SATYABHAMA (Science & Technology Yojana for Atmanirbhar Bharat in Mining Advancement Portal), while the DARPG had taken the initiative of digitisation of CRU across all the 70 ministries and departments.
According to the report, use of heavy duty scanners in Central Registration Units was prevalent.
“Ministry of Home Affairs has indicated that the Central Registration Unit has been provided with high speed scanners and the unit is creation 100% e-receipts,” the report stated.
“Over 95% of the fresh receipts have been replied to in digital form. Under this initiative, 33 lakh physical letters of acknowledgement to citizens filing Public Grievances have been translated to digital responses,” the report stated.
Several ministries have upgraded e-office version 7.0 and a roll-out plan has been formulated by National Informatics Centre, the report mentioned.
The report stated that the railway ministry had said the consumption of paper has reduced to 10,272 reams in 2021 as compared to 22,685 in 2018. The expenditure on cartridges is expected to reduce by Rs 50 lakh by March 2022 as compared Rs 1.3 crores in 2019-20.
According to the report, the measures will increase efficiency in decision-making in government and will eventually lead to adopting new technology, transforming work culture, reducing hierarchies, among others.
The objective of the initiative was to adopt flatter organisational structures and put in place appropriate delegation at various levels. For this purpose, current procedural frameworks, levels of disposal, channels of submission and existing delegation were reviewed by the ministries.
Under this initiative, a group of secretaries had formulated a roadmap for the steps to be taken towards the initiative of “increasing efficiency in decision-making in the Central Secretariat”.
A national workshop for all ministries was convened by DARPG under the chairmanship of cabinet secretary last year.
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